1995: Archers of Loaf - Vee Vee

Has everyone had personal soundtracks for their life and times? Was there, for instance, a record that tracked through your mind the first time you’d been dumped (Disentegration), resolved to hunt down her new boyfriend (The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste) and confront him looking like a mutant reincarnation of Ponyboy (Legacy of Brutality)? Did songs accompany your thoughts when you were cut from the basketball team (“Out of Step”)? For you parents, what did you hum to your new-born child (“To Here Knows When”)? Does Thanksgiving evoke Arlo Guthrie for any other Americans out there?

In 1995, if you were between the ages of 18 and 28, Archers of Loaf’s Vee Vee may have worked its way into your cognitive rotation in the same manner. The band's sound, tighter than Pavement's and more angular than Superchunk's, was ideal for building anthems on loyalty and subversion. In “Harnessed in Slums,” Eric Bachman barks, “Snuff the leader with the leader with the bad-assed plan/ Take what you want from the palm of his hand,” and it’s hard not to conjure that stout manager at BurgerFreak who fired you for stealing french fries. And that’s not to trivialize the record’s impact. Instead, it may be lauded for its ability to remove intellectualization from concepts like revolution and leave us with the sentiments of daily human reality.

The music of Vee Vee, jittery yet powerful, shoves any message that manages to surface over the edge. The musical devices employed range from choruses accompanied by sweeping and insistent power chords to the Archers’ signature eighth-note guitar duels. Like their fellow Tar heel colleagues Superchunk, Archers of Loaf have a heritage that resides somewhere between hardcore and pop. Songs like “Harnessed in Slums,” “The Worst Has Yet to Come,” and “Nostalgia” possess hardcore’s sheer energetic roots while sprinkling in enough melody to make it accessible to a range of audiences. Other songs -- “Nevermind the Enemy,” “Greatest of All Time,” “Underdogs of Nipomo,” “Fabricoh” -- tip the balance in slight favor of pop with glorious results. Other tunes, like “Step Into the Light” and “Underachievers March and Fight Song,” don’t commit themselves enough either way and therefore falter. These moments, however, are far between enough that they don’t detract from the record’s overall stoicism.

All of this brings me to the most magical day of my life: I’d been short-changed at a pizzeria (“Nevermind the Enemy”), but I was hesitant to contest it because I didn’t want to deter the girl seated two tables over, who, amid my friends, my cherry coke, and my greased-out napkins, had been staring at me (“Step Into the Light”). I summoned my swagger and walked to her, when the cashier called to me, “Count your change, pretty-boy?” I swiveled to him. He had paws for arms, a neck as thick as my torso, and the ink was barely dry on his prison release (“Underdogs of Nipomo”). To retaliate, I couldn’t muster anything intelligent or even absurd to say to expose his empty bravado (“Let the Loser Melt”). I looked back to the table where my friends sat, to find that they’d vanished from the establishment, in search of safer company (“Floating Friends”). The girl, with eyes like Siouxsie Sioux and a pout like the Little Mermaid, could have been inside my soul, testing my courage at this pivotal moment (“Death in the Park”). But there was nothing I could do or say to retain my dignity or my 43 cents. I turned away from the cashier’s smirk and the girl was gone.

This was life for a sensitive, skinny boy, living in an industrial plot of anywhere (“Harnessed in Slums”). I’d had the misfortune of leaving the pizzeria just as first shift ended at the steel plant, “Edith,” “Cassandra,” “Meredith Lovefingers,” “cherry-boy,” they’d yell to me from the entrance gate (“The Worst Has Yet to Come”). Life was a silent tremor of what it used to be, when I’d ride my bike everywhere and boys and girls had interchangeable paths to innocent happiness (“Nostalgia”). It would be simple to slip into worthlessness with this life. I had to get out (“Underachievers March and Fight Song”). There was no other way, I’d die a victim of my surroundings if I didn’t. That’s when I heard the motorcycle race up behind me. I turned. It wasn’t a mugger or a taunter or a beggar. The rider lifted her helmet and shook her matted locks of black hair. It was the girl from the pizzeria. “You comin’ to New York with me?” she asked. (“Greatest of All Time”).

DeLorean

There’s a lot of good music out there, and it’s not all being released this year. With DeLorean, we aim to rediscover overlooked artists and genres, to listen to music historically and contextually, to underscore the fluidity of music. While we will cover reissues here, our focus will be on music that’s not being pushed by a PR firm.